RICE, JOSEPH MAYER:

American physician and editor; born May 27, 1857, at Philadelphia, Pa. He was educated at the public schools of Philadelphia and New York, at the College of the City of New York, and at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York (M.D. 1881). From 1881 to 1883 he was resident physician at Mount Sinai Hospital, New York, and from 1885 to 1886 house physician at the Montefiore Home in the same city.

In 1888 Rice abandoned the practise of medicine to devote himself to the study and working out of some practical problems in education, especially with regard to his original idea that a system of education might be based on the inductive principle. To this end he studied psychology and pedagogics in the universities of Jena and Leipsic, and on his return to the United States personally examined about 125,000 children in schools of all kinds. He is still continuing his researches. The result of his investigations appeared in the "Forum" (Dec., 1896; Jan., Feb., April, and June, 1897), of which magazine Rice has been the editor since May, 1897. He is the author of "The Public School System of the United States" (New York, 1893) and "The Rational Spelling-Book" (ib. 1898) as well as of many articles on educational subjects in various journals.